Syrian officials said 13 Australian women and children who left Roj camp in northeastern Syria are stranded in the country after Australia refused repatriation, according to a Wednesday statement from Syria’s information ministry.
The ministry said the families—13 women and children from four families—left Roj camp last week and traveled toward Damascus. It is the camp officials described as a remote facility near the border with Iraq that houses relatives of people with alleged ties to Islamic State militants. Syria said the families expected to remain in Damascus for about 72 hours before being sent to Australia, but were turned back before reaching Damascus International Airport.
In the ministry’s statement, Syria said its foreign ministry was informed after the families left the camp that “the Australian government had refused to receive them.” Syrian officials said the families were therefore still awaiting what they described as a solution requiring coordination with relevant international parties.
Australia’s position, according to the Associated Press report, was firm at senior-government level. At a news conference in Australia on Wednesday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said, “we are providing no support for repatriation and no assistance for these people.” At a separate news conference in Beijing, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said her government has made “very clear that we are not assisting in their repatriation.”
Syria also described how the group sought to leave the camp area. The information ministry said the families, through a lawyer, obtained passports that were delivered by an “individual” while they were still in northeastern Syria in territory under the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF.
The Associated Press report said a Lebanese-Australian doctor, Jamal Rifi, had previously told Australian media that he was helping to coordinate the repatriation effort, but Rifi could not be reached for comment. The report also said a previous attempt to return 34 women and children from Roj camp in February had been turned back by Syrian authorities.
The wider context is that foreign nationals and their relatives from multiple countries were held in a network of camps and detention centers in northeastern Syria after the Islamic State group lost control of territory in 2019. While officials and others have said the group is defeated in Syria, the militant organization still has sleeper cells that carry out attacks in Syria and Iraq.
The AP account said the larger al-Hol camp was closed down and that thousands of suspected Islamic State militants previously held in Syria were transferred to Iraq by the U.S. military to stand trial there. It added that the camp population and detention system have been affected by fighting earlier this year between government forces and the SDF, when the government seized much of the territory formerly held by the SDF.
Australia has repatriated Australian women and children from Syrian detention camps on two occasions, the report said, and it said other Australians have also returned without government assistance.